The present invention relates to industrial material handling vehicles and, more specifically, to systems and methods for sensing the presence of a load carried by a material handling vehicle.
Material handling vehicles are commonly found in warehouses, factories, shipping yards, and, generally, wherever pallets, large packages, or loads of goods are required to be transported from place to place. Material handling vehicles typically include load supporting members for lifting packages or pallets for transporting, a drive motor for propelling the truck, a steering control mechanism, and a brake.
Industrial material handling vehicles have been designed to include sensing features that allow them to be an automatic guided vehicle (AGV). An AGV may be programmed to store travel routes and include a control system, which is integrated with the drive, steering, and braking systems for the vehicle. Among other reasons, sensing or locating features may be included with an AGV to detect the surrounding area, for example storage racks in a warehouse.
When a load is being engaged by the load supporting members of the AGV, there may be an indication that the pallet, or the load, is present on the load supporting members before the AGV transports the load to the desired destination. Likewise, there may also be an indication that a pallet is disengaged from the load supporting members when the load is delivered to its destination before the AGV continues operation. This may result in misinformation in a warehouse management system by reporting a pallet move that has not been completed successfully.